I’ve gotten a lot of weird gifts over my tour but so far this was a favorite. Someone gave me a nipple.
A homemade nipple.
AND IT’S AWESOME.
That is, until I got glitter on it and then it was stuck to the latex and I was trying to pull the glitter off of my nipple but it wouldn’t come off so I asked Victor to lick it because I have a thing about not licking latex nipples that strangers gave me, but then he wouldn’t do it so I can’t get the glitter off and now I know why people refer to glitter as “the herpes of the craft world,” and I also know how it feels to have herpes on your nipples, which I’m not even sure is medically possible.
But what I do know is that it’s now become my new lucky charm.
My third nipple…
I also got a pretty kick-ass picture of my wild boar (James Garfield) painted with human lips and a dead mouse replica made of peanut putter and fruit roll-ups.
It’s been a weird week.
Speaking of “weird week”, you might have noticed me a few days freaking out about somehow ending up on the New York Times Best-Seller list. I still can’t believe that happened. The list publishes a week from Sunday and here’s where I fell:
#1 in Combined Print and Ebook Nonfiction
#2 in Print Hardcover Nonfiction
#2 in Print Hardcover and Paperback Combined
#2 in Ebook Nonfiction
It seems like a dream to me and I can’t wrap my mind around it, but I have something to say about it.
Thank you.
This book was 10 years in the making and I put my blood, sweat, tears and other body fluids into it, but none of that would have mattered without your support. And not just the support of each of you encouraging me and telling me not to quit when I was in a deep depression or hiding under the desk having anxiety attacks. The simple fact is that as a first-time, no-name author I had almost no chance of ever getting on that list, but somehow my book made it on its first week out…because of you. Because you bought the book. Because you told other people about it. Because you sent it to you mom or child or friends so that they’d understand that you aren’t the only weirdo in the world. And because of that, people will read this book. People who might have felt just as strange and weird as all of us will be able to find that they aren’t alone…that there is a tribe of people out there just as fucked up as they are. People who always felt like misfits will see that sometimes it’s the misfits that rule the world, and that a large enough group of us can change the rules. I don’t have the words to thank you for joining me on this long journey, nor do I have the words to make you understand what a difference you’ve made to me and to everyone else out there like us, but I have to try.
Thank you.
Score one for the misfits.
Score one for us.